Responding to Comments – Government Spending for Public Programmes

Sometime last week, I recorded a few more video responses to selected blog comments. Posted below is one of the videos. I welcome further comments and discussion among my readers on this subject or other matters of national interest.

Sender : Suhaimi
Comment :
The Government should make a proper Return on Investment (ROI) evaluation – in terms of social value, human capital, health, etc. – before allocating a budget to any programme. If the Government has proper justification, nobody can question it.
PM: Thank you, Suhaimi, I fully agree with you that we have to spend wisely and prudently because we are using public money, and public money should be used in a way that really benefits the Rakyat. For this reason we will look at projects that constitute a high priority for the Rakyat.
For example, as you know, we’ve embarked on the NKRA, and the 6 NKRAs that we have identified are, according to our assessment, areas of priority, as inspired by the people. The people want to see eradication fo poverty, the people want better public transport, the people want us to reduce crime and corruption, and the people want quality education, and the people want us to help the disadvantaged groups. So these are the areas that will receive the highest priority under the 10th Malaysia Plan.
At the same time, of course, we also have to get the economy moving, and for this reason we have decided on a Facilitation Fund to the tune of RM20 billion under the 10th Malaysia Plan. Hopefully we (the Government) will be able to act as an enabler for the private sector to invest. By using a comparatively small amount of public money, we can manage to trigger a much higher level of private sector investment. So the Government is conscious of this, and hopefully we will be able to meet the expectations of the people.